The first time I heard the expression “sleeping giant” was when I ran across the supposed quote from Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, who wrote in his journal about the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor: “I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve.” That sleeping giant, of course, was the United States of America. After the attack, America woke up to its place in history and the world, and the Greatest Generation used its latent strength to defeat the forces of imperialism and fascism.
The term “sleeping giant” has also been used to describe other things, such as the volcanic formation under Yellowstone National Park. It may seem like nothing now with just its geysers and hot springs, but if this “sleeping giant” would ever really wake up, it could cause the largest volcanic eruption in history.
